


The Lioness and the Bull

by ElectricZ



Series: For Tomorrow [4]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Character Study, Developing Friendships, Drama, Duelling, Gen, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-03
Packaged: 2019-04-30 13:15:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14497761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElectricZ/pseuds/ElectricZ
Summary: Left together on guard duty, two of the Normandy squad's most unstable members relate to one another in the only way they know how: with brutal violence. No sex (it's not that kind of fic) but Jack's memories as a prisoner of Cerberus are depicted.





	1. On Guard

A dark shadow fell across the ground. Jack glanced up to see a small, dim gray cloud blot out the sun in a purple sky. Pushed along by the wind, it quickly passed, returning the meadow to sunlight. Her two companions didn't take notice. The first, _Normandy's_ Kodiak shuttle, sat idly on its landing gear waiting patiently for the rest of the landing party to return. It was just slightly more fun to have around than her second companion, an adolescent krogan in the midst of recounting, again, his fight with a thresher maw days earlier.

"Shepard didn't even flinch," Grunt's eyes sparkled in the sunlight and smacked a cannonball-sized fist into his other hand, "even as two thousand tons of flesh fell at his feet. It was glorious!"

Jack couldn't take any more of it. "Look, suitcase. How about you give it a rest for five minutes, huh? Nobody gives a shit about your little bat mitzvah or whatever you wanna call it."

Grunt was unfazed. "You don't understand. I'm starting to get it. Size doesn't matter."

"What the fuck are you babbling about?"

"When you broke out at Purgatory, I didn't think you'd make it ten seconds. I mean, look at you. Small, frail... Hell I could break your spine in two with one hand." Jack's teeth clenched but Grunt continued before she could say anything. "But you tore through them like a phalanx. Your biotics kept them from even getting close."

 _That's more like it,_ Jack thought, leaning back against the shuttle. "They got their uses."

"I bet they've brought you victory many times in battle."

"Obviously not enough. The bastards caught me, didn't they?"

"Yeah," Grunt said, discouraged. "I guess they did." He regarded her with a strange look. At least it looked strange to Jack, and she was no expert on krogan body language. It made her uncomfortable but she couldn't figure out why. "We're a lot a like, you know?" Grunt said.

 _Oh here it comes,_ Jack thought and sighed. _Why does everyone want to try and bond with me?_

"We're both experiments," Grunt continued. "We don't have families. Everybody's afraid of us... Except Shepard. And we're the most powerful warriors in his clan."

Jack's expression was neutral. "Is that right? Then why are we standing around here watching the grass grow?"

"The battlemaster picks his team based on who will fight the best in the given situation."

Jack pursed her lips. She knew a weak spot when she saw one. "So why did he leave you behind, then? Being a genetically engineered super warrior and all."

Grunt shrugged. "Some missions require 'tact'. That's not my specialty."

"Bullshit. Shepard has his favorites and you know it." Jack snorted and hacked a wad of mucous to the ground. The pollen on the planet was unbelievable. "You're just not one of 'em."

Grunt's jaw tightened. "Shepard doesn't play favorites. If he needed me, he'd take me."

"It's OK," Jack wore a sympathetic expression. "It's just because he thinks you'll go berserk and wipe out his entire crew."

"He knows I will follow him," Grunt said. "I don't always understand his reasoning, but he always ends up victorious. He finds the strengths of those who fight with him. He's a worthy leader."

"Bullshit. We're just bullet stoppers to him. You think he gives a shit about you?"

"He is my krantt and my battlemaster. I am his clan. He's done more for me than any krogan and asks only for my loyalty in return. He has it!"

Jack crossed her arms and pressed her head back against the shuttle's hull. It was still cool in spite of the glaring sun. "Aww, that's too bad. I thought you were the only other person on the ship who wasn't full of shit."

"You're still right," Grunt said. His combat shotgun was inches away from his hands. Ordinarily, he would have seized the opportunity to end the conversation. But he knew that's not what Shepard would have wanted. It surprised him that it mattered to him, but it did. He would try to use words, as the Commander always did. "So what about you?" he asked.

"What about me?"

"Powers like yours, and you're on guard duty. Why didn't he take you with him?"

"I'm just a tool to him," Jack said. "Something else we have in common."

"Maybe he's afraid you'd go berserk and wipe out his entire crew." Grunt said. "Like I said, you and I are a lot alike, Jack."

Having her own words parroted back to her made Jack scowl. "You think you're like me?

Grunt grinned, his white teeth glinting in the sunlight. "Yeah. We were both created to destroy."

Jack was suddenly very tired of the krogan child. It was always the same, people thinking they knew something about her. "Oh, you were force fed a mutagenic metal too? You killed kids your own age as part of your tests? I bet you liked some sleazebag crawling into your bed every night and fucking you in every hole. Did they raise your pain threshold to boost your power, make you better at killing? For thirteen years? Wow, what a coincidence. We're like fuckin' twins."

Grunt stared at Jack, thinking about his Claymore again. He might be able to get a shot off before she turned sparkly blue, but again, that's not what Shepard expected of him. "Not exactly. My life only started a few weeks ago, true. I don't know what you went through to get where you are today. But the power is there, I can see it."

Jack shook her head rapidly from side to side. "Dude, you are seriously fucked in the skull."

Grunt cocked his head. "It's not the same, though."

"What's not the same?"

Grunt stepped beside Jack next to the shuttle. It was cooler in the shade, but she didn't like having him that close. She took several steps into the meadow with her arms crossed, giving him an irritated look over her shoulder. "Your power," Grunt said, staying in the shade. "I saw you knock out a pair of YMIR's with one blast. Haven't seen those kind of fireworks since."

Jack looked back up at the sky. The little cloud was long gone and no more were in sight. No one knew it, but she was just as surprised as her rescuers at her increase in power back on Purgatory. It was only temporary, though. While she was still a formidable biotic in her own right, she was no longer godlike and it pissed her off to have a taste of it only to have it taken away. Worse, everybody seemed to notice she wasn't as strong as before. "Yeah well, they had me on ice for a long time. Guess my batteries had an extra charge on them."

Grunt nodded. That Jack could admit her shortcoming was the first sign he'd seen that she could change. "Your power is still impressive. I like how you can rupture organs without even touching them."

"You're sweet," Jack sneered. "You know your problem, though? You don't get I don't want to be friends. So how about that rest we talked about you giving me?"

Grunt frowned again at the refusal of his second attempt to reconcile. How Shepard managed to do this day after day mystified him. Glad to be done talking, he scanned the hills in the distance where the landing party had disappeared. A line of battle crawlers crested the ridge, their main guns firing in a ripple salvo. They were flanked on both sides by turian mounted cavalry, riding on the backs of mammoth war beasts thundering down the the hillside. Shepard was nowhere to be seen. It was up to him, Grunt knew. He would charge them all, Jack following behind, eviscerating them with her lightning. The battle would not last long.

Jack heard a soft grumble behind her and turned to see Grunt staring absently into the distance. She looked at the empty hills and tried to picture what the krogan imagined he saw, but then she decided she didn't care. "Fuckin' typical," she muttered. "Shepard left me with someone crazier than I am."

The mention of the Commander's name brought Grunt out of his daydream. "You're free because of him."

"I didn't ask him to do it."

"He deemed you worthy," Grunt pointed a claw at Jack. "He could have just left you. You owe him your life."

"I don't owe anybody anything. What the fuck do you know about me?"

"I know you want to fight. It's what you were made for. Shepard is giving you the chance."

"That again? Holy shit, you actually believe this crap," Jack said with a laugh.

Grunt nodded. "Of course. I was created to be a weapon. Hell, it's all I want to be. But I want to be the best weapon I can, pointed in the right direction. Without direction, we're just bombs. Bombs have no honor. Shepard can give you direction. But you won't let him. You don't want it."

Jack wasn't usually caught off guard, but all she could do was turn silently back to the hills. Grunt knew who he was and what he was. He embraced being a dumb brute. She had known dozens like him from all species and looked down on them all because she wasn't like them. It was one thing to charge blindly into a fight, but she always kept her head, made her own decisions. She wasn't an animal, even though on occasion she acted like one. But it was out of necessity, not a choice.

 _Or was it,_ she thought? The question nagged at her every time she ended a life. It bothered her Grunt referred to her as a bomb. She didn't start out that way. Cerberus turned her into one. _That's what you tell yourself,_ she thought, _b_ _ut that's what everyone sees. A ticking time bomb. That's why you're on guard duty instead of running off with the hero. It's why everything you touch, everyone you know, turns to shit. What the hell does the lizard know? Or Shepard for that matter? If either of them lived ten percent of your life, they'd give their sidearms a blowjob and suck down the cum._

Then there was Grunt. Born to be a weapon, born to destroy, but choosing to be something more. She faced that choice many times after escaping from Cerberus, but every time, she wound up exactly where she started... fighting everyone, and everything. It was like acid burning away at her soul. She only knew one way of making it stop. "Fuck it. You know what? I'm done with this."

Grunt cocked his head. "Fine. I'm tired of all this talk."

"Not what I meant, dumbass." Jack walked to the shuttle door and retrieved her pack from the interior. 

Grunt stood up from the hull. "Where are you going?"

"What the fuck do you care?"

"Shepard gave us an order to stand watch." Grunt said.

Jack slung her pack over her shoulder and stalked back out to stand face-to-chest with Grunt. His teeth were very white and sharp, and she tilted her head back so they were only inches away from her nose. "I'm not your boyfriend's bitch. That's your place, isn't it?"

"I thought you were smart, Jack," Grunt glowered down at her. "You're disappointing me."

"Funny coming from a science project who calls himself Grunt," Jack sneered and walked back to the meadow. "He's using you. You're just too dumb to see it."

Grunt called after her. "I was wrong. You're not stupid, you're weak."

Jack stopped cold. "What did you say?"

"You're weak," Grunt enunciated clearly. "You've got all that power, but you haven't learned to truly harness it. And it's not because you can't."

Jack paced back and forth, energy crackling up and down her arms. "You want to find out how strong I am?"

Grunt walked slowly around Jack, his icy blue eyes aglow. The look he gave her now was nothing like before. She rotated to keep him in front of her but he now blocked her path to the mountains. She could easily walk around him in any other direction, but he obviously intended to stop her.

 _Waste his ass_ , Jack thought. But if she did, then what? When Shepard came back, she'd have to deal with him unless she ran away. And he'd definitely come after her. Stealing the shuttle was out, what with that pain in the ass AI able to take control. That left apologizing, and damn if she was going to kiss and make up with an overgrown tadpole trying to teach her life's lessons.

On the other hand, If she just knocked Grunt out and split, Shepard might cut his losses and let her go. The rest of them would be happy to see her gone, she knew.

It was decided. Jack slammed the ground in front of her. The earth split before her, sliced by a biotic blade, sending rocks and plants flying in its wake. The underground blast ripped towards Grunt, launching him backwards off his feet. He plowed a short trench with his impact and ground to a halt, his armor charred and exposed skin smoldering in the wind.

Jack smirked at the fallen krogan. "That was half strength 'cause we're so alike and all."

Her smile was short lived as Grunt leapt to his feet faster than something of his bulk should have and charged with a roar. He halved the distance to her before she slammed down and the ground erupted with another explosion from her clenched fists.

Grunt flew back once more, knocked again into the dirt. With an even louder roar was on his feet faster than the first time, charging towards her.

Jack screamed and let loose with another bolt, this time aimed square at Grunt's chest. Thunder echoed through the hills. Grunt got almost to arm's length this time before the blast sent him back five meters. He rolled twice and landed on his knees. Blood oozed from a gash in his crest and the front of his armor was now scorched black from neck to waist. He coughed and spat thick, bloody ichor from his mouth.

Jack was astonished that Grunt was still conscious, let alone alive. Her attack would have shredded a human's innards to the point an autopsy would have been pointless. Even a krogan should have been at least out cold by now. The world started to spin around her. She was almost spent, and needed to put an end to this. "Be a shame to waste all that effort busting me out," she said, breathing heavily. "I'm useless to Shepard dead."

"You're useless to him alive," Grunt growled. As he rose to his feet brought his Claymore shotgun to bear on the tiny human. He pumped shell after shell into Jack's torso and head, advancing and reloading with each shot. Jack's upper body pulsed with bright blue as the white hot shot sparked and ricocheted in all directions. It was her turn to be knocked back.

He closed the distance as Jack convulsed and staggered on her fee from the repeated gunshots. The blue glow dancing over her body began to fade. All she could do was focus on repelling the point blank assault, her strength sapped from the show she put on before. All along he'd been goading her to make her waste energy, and it worked. She could barely see the huge form towering over her through the blinding light of her aura and the muzzle blast of the shotgun.

Grunt swung his firing hand free of the Claymore and reared back with a shoulder as thick as Jack's torso. Had her biotic shield not been up, his punch would have shattered her ribcage and ruptured every organ. Instead it knocked her into the hull of the shuttle. She bounced and tried to steady herself against it. Grunt was on her before she could fall. His claws enveloped her neck and lifted her high into the air, a rag doll in the hands of an angry child. He slammed her into the hull of the shuttle, each impact wracking her body with pain. Slowly the bright blue shimmer over Jack's skin began to fade. Grunt's strength, however, did not. He would break her magic shell eventually.

Jack's world spun about her. The bright sun, the spiraling horizon, the repeated impact on the hull scrambled her senses. Suddenly she was ten years old again, pushed up against her cell's cold wall, her nightgown pushed up around her waist, her nightly assailant breathing against her neck... powerless to stop him. That little girl screamed inside her head, but outside she didn't make a sound.

Grunt flung Jack face down against the ground and stomped her head with his massive armored boot, smashing her face deep into the soft earth. Her biotics might protect her from the crushing weight on her skull, but could not allow her to breathe dirt. Her lungs began burned as Grunt ground her head into the soil with a snarl. The blue glow surrounding Jack was almost gone. Jack would soon follow.

Images of the warden drifted through Jack's consciousness. Even though she had been drugged, beaten and terrified every day of her life in that hellhole, she never went down without a fight. Especially that one time when she puked out her meds without them seeing, and she was only pretending to be in a daze. It was the last handjob that man ever got, and it blew his mind. Reflexively, Jack's right hand reached up to push against the force diving her face into the soil. It found Grunt's ankle, where she focused all of her remaining energy through her clenched fingers.

A brilliant spark erupted around Grunt's calf with a deafening crack. Flesh sizzled inside armor and filled the air with its charred stench and Grunt howled with pain. His entire body convulsed as the charge coursed through his body, but he did not relent. He pushed Jack's face further into the dirt, screaming at the top of his lungs. After several agonizing seconds, the sparks arcing around his leg died, and the glow around Jack's body dissolved to nothing. Her grip around his leg weakened, then released. Her arm fell to the ground.

Grunt lifted his foot from Jack's immobile body and inspected the damage. The armor was intact, but the tissue beneath was charred to the bone. It would take some time to heal. He tested his injured leg against the ground and found it almost useless to support his weight, so he shifted it all to the healthy side, when a cough from the ground made him look down over the barrel of his Claymore.

Jack stirred slightly on ground and weakly tried to push up from the dirt. Her body was still in the fight even if her mind was not. 

Grunt lowered his shotgun. "Impressive," he told her, even though her brain was in no condition to process the compliment. Would she live? She was badly injured and humans were pitifully frail. He picked up her limp form and walked back to the shuttle. Shepard wasn't due back for hours.  _Normandy's_ computer might know what to do.

"Maybe you're not as weak as I thought," Grunt said as he lowered Jack to the deck. He activated the shuttle's transmitters. "Shepard? _Normandy?_ Is anybody out there? Got a little problem, here..."


	2. Krogan Logic

There weren't too many places on the _Normandy_ where someone as large as Grunt could pace effectively, and the port cargo hold was just such a spot. His armor still bore the scars of his fight with Jack from two hours before, but the gash on his head had sealed and his wounded leg finally stopped bleeding. After he dropped Jack off in the infirmary, Dr. Chakwas offered to look at his injuries. When he refused she didn't try to keep him from leaving. He liked the doctor. She knew when her services were needed and when they weren't.

_Or was she just happy to get him out of her lab?_ Grunt stopped mid-stride to consider that. No, she respected his superior metabolism and healing capability. He was sure of it.

But where was Shepard? The ship's computer successfully piloted the shuttle back to the _Normandy_ when he called to explain that he'd nearly dropped Jack into the void, and then went back to the planet to retrieve Shepard when he completed his mission.

Grunt expected to stay on the shuttle and return to the surface with it, but the male Cerberus soldier insisted that Grunt go to his quarters and wait there for the Commander. Grunt suggested that Taylor make him, but Shepard called the ship and confirmed the order. So instead, Taylor and the turian went back down to act as rearguard for Shepard, while Grunt returned to the cargo hold to wait. After the act of conversing, waiting was the thing Grunt was worst at.

The cargo bay's hatch whirled and hissed open. Shepard, still in his combat gear from the surface, stopped in the door.

"Battlemaster!" Grunt stood rigidly at attention, making his ankle throb. He could hardly wait to tell the tale of his fight, and hear the assessment.

Shepard cast a glance out the hatch before shutting it behind him. He wore a scowl as he followed the trail of bloody footprints that crisscrossed the floor to where Grunt's pacing had coated the deck with smudgy layer of dried blood. In the middle of it all, the krogan stood ramrod straight, a wide, toothy grin on his face. "You all right?"

"I've got third degree burns and deep trauma on my left ankle and foot," Grunt said. "It'll heal by tomorrow. The head wound is superficial. I am ready for battle now, if you command it!"

Shepard continued to stare at the krogan. "You want to tell me what happened down there?"

"Oh, it was magnificent!" Grunt began to pantomime the fight and Shepard took a step back. "First she tried to stun me with a blast through the ground, to knock me down. First mistake, not going for the kill right away. But I knew she'd-"

"Grunt, "Shepard waved his hands. "Grunt! What started it?"

The krogan slumped. "You don't want to hear about how I beat her?"

"In a minute," Shepard said. "First I want to know why two of my crew tried to kill each other."

"Oh. She was going to abandon her post."

"What?"

"She was going to desert, run away." Grunt grinned again. "I stopped her."

"How do you know she was going to desert?"

"She told me," Grunt was growing impatient with this line of questioning, especially when there were more important things he actually wanted to discuss. But if his battlemaster wanted information he would provide it, no matter how long it took.

It was Shepard's turn to pace. "Did she say why?"

Grunt shrugged. "She thinks you're using us. Bulletstoppers, she said. That you'd use us when you didn't want to get one of your favorites killed. Or leave us behind to do the tasks that were below them."

Shepard stopped and stared at Grunt once more.

"I told her she was wrong," Grunt said. "You choose your allies based on their strengths, on who will bring you victory. But she didn't believe me."

"Then what happened?"

"She told me I was full of shit," Grunt's eyes narrowed. "I didn't like that."

"Is that why you attacked her?"

"Oh, I wanted to... But that's not what you've been teaching me."

Shepard raised his eyebrows. "Go on."

Grunt looked away, embarrassed. "I told her that we were a lot alike, and she didn't like that at all. Then I told her she had you all wrong, that following you would lead to glory, if she'd just let you teach you like you've taught me. For some reason, that made her mad. If that's how all human females think, I feel sorry for your species."

"Jack's a special case," Shepard said. "But the rest aren't any easier. Then what happened?"

"She picked up her gear and walked off. I told her you gave us an order, and I wasn't going to let her disobey. So I got in her way. "

"And that's when you hit her."

"No. Like I said, that's not what you've been teaching me."

"She attacked _you?"_

"HA," Grunt bellowed, becoming animated once again. "She tried! But instead of hitting me directly she tried to knock me out from underground. The look on her face when I got up-"

Shepard waved his hand again. "In a minute, in a minute. Let me get this straight. So she hit you first, and you didn't kill her?"

"I thought I did," Grunt said. "I crushed her under my boot. I was thinking about ripping her skull out by the spine, or maybe seeing what my shotgun could do at point blank range, but then she started moving again. So I brought her back on board." Grunt looked down at the floor. "If that was a mistake, I'm ready to face my punishment. It's your ship, your crew, and you are my battlemaster. I know Jack deserves to die for her disloyalty and if you want, I'll bring you her head. But..."

Much like he had misunderstood who attacked who, Shepard puzzled over exactly when he had made the decision to punish anybody for the fight. If anything, Grunt didn't realize how backwards his assumptions were.

Grunt's eyes locked with Shepard. "Jack is one of the strongest enemies I've ever fought. Not just her biotics, but her spirit. She never backed down or begged for mercy. Most aliens would prefer a quick death on their knees, but not her. She fought me to the end and fought well." He straightened again. "If you taught her like you taught me, she'd be a powerful ally. And I know _you_ could do it, battlemaster!"

Shepard rubbed the back of his neck and nodded. "Good thinking, Grunt. I'll see what I can do."

Grunt grew taller with the compliment. _Good thinking. Don't hear that very often,_ he thought. But he liked it. _Maybe strength is strength, regardless of where it comes from._

Shepard pointed to Grunt's gnarled leg. "In the mean time, take care of that. I need my heavy hitter at a hundred percent."

"Healed by tomorrow," Grunt said, "I promise."

"Good." Shepard eyeballed the blood soaked floor, then headed towards the door. "I've got to go check on Jack. I'll come back later and you can fill me in on how you took her out."

Grunt laughed with glee. He was sure the day could not have gotten better!

* * *

The door closed behind Shepard and he made a cut-off motion with his hand. Directly in front of him, Jacob and Zaeed warily lowered their rifles. Beyond, blue and white sparks dissipated around Samara and Miranda who both wore similar concerned expressions. Garrus and Thane, fresh from their positions in the windows in the starboard hold approached from the opposite end of the corridor, rifles against their shoulders. Shepard glanced up to see Kasumi and Tali replacing the panel covering the ventilation shaft leading to the port cargo hold. They jumped down and joined their crewmates in staring at their commander with amazement. An all-out assault hadn't been needed after all.

Shepard let out a sigh of relief. "Krogan logic."


	3. Good Fight

Jack couldn't breathe. With fire in her lungs, she bolted upright, but a giant suffocating hand held her flat on her back. She coughed again and suddenly, cool, dry air filled her chest and the pressure was gone. She opened her eyes but could only see a bright halo of light above her.

"Relax, Jack," said a female voice. She recognized the accent immediately. It was the _Normandy's_ doctor, somewhere close by. "You're in a stasis field. Try not to move."

Ordinarily Jack wasn't in the mood to take orders from anyone, ever, but the pain in her chest was worse than anything she'd ever experienced. She took a deep, less painful breath, closed her eyes and lay still.

"Do you know where you are?"

"Yeah," Jack croaked. "Back on the _Normandy."_

"Do you remember what happened?" said a second voice. Shepard was in the room.

Remember... Jack remembered the muzzle flash of Grunt's shotgun in her face, his scaly hand around her neck as he pounded her into the hull of the shuttle. The musty smell of the earth filled her nose once again and a loud beeping from some nearby instruments recorded her quickening pulse and rising blood pressure. She heard movement from somewhere on her right, the hiss of a hypo being readied, a sound she was intimate with from her time as Subject Zero. She inhaled deeply and tensed every muscle in her body, then relaxed and all at once the beeping ceased. "I don't need it, doc. Put it away."

Jack still couldn't see, but there was a pause and then the sound of plastic rattling on a hard surface. She tried to open her eyes but could still only see white light.

"How do you feel?" Shepard asked.

_Let the inquisition begin_ , Jack thought. "Like I've had the shit kicked out of me by a krogan."

"To hear him tell, he was trying to beat some sense into you."

"Guess you don't need to hear my side of the story then, huh?"

Shepard sounded irritated. She didn't need to see his face to tell. "What _is_ your side of the story?"

Jack looked back up at the ceiling, or at least where she imagined where it would be. Even though Grunt got to say his peace first, she knew the big brute hadn't embellished the events on the planet. He didn't have to. She dared him to fight and he called her on it. Any defense she had would be a lame excuse at best. She just didn't have the fight in her anymore. "I'd go with whatever he said."

"He actually said a lot of things." Shepard sounded like he was taking a seat next to her, his voice closer to her ear. "Like you think that I'm using you for cannon fodder."

Jack didn't respond. Knowing that Grunt told Shepard only made her feel worse, especially since she knew it wasn't true the moment she said it.

"And you were going to abandon your post and take off. Jack?"

"Sounds like you and I have the same problem," Jack said. "A krogan who can't shut up."

"Is that what you really think?" Shepard asked. "That I'm using you?"

Jack closed her eyes.. Just like she recognized the sound of a sedative being prepared, she always knew when someone was conning her, getting ready to fuck her over. But in spite of every opportunity Shepard had so far, he'd kept his word. He gave her access to all of the Cerberus files like he promised, defended her against that Cerberus bitch and the other members of the crew who saw nothing more in her than a psycho. He was the only person who ever treated her with respect... and meant it. That she wanted to trust him scared her more than anything else. "I'm tired. Can we do this later, Doc?"

"That might be best," Chakwas said. "She needs her rest, Commander."

Jack heard Shepard get up, but he didn't walk away. She waited for the inevitable question.

"You gonna try to even the score when you get out of here?"

As much as Jack wanted to skin the krogan alive for the hurt he put on her, she couldn't deny she'd asked for it. "No."

"That's not your style, Jack."

Jack stared into the white nothingness above her. "He's the only one on this ship who isn't full of shit."

* * *

Jack awoke to a pounding headache, but this time without the crushing weight on her body. Whatever the doctor had done to her was working. The pain was still there, but she could at least move. She looked around the infirmary and found she was alone. The only activity was on the biofeedback display next to her bed. She recalled the conversation she had with Shepard. Did it really happen? Her whole mind was in a fog. She propped her head up with her hands behind her neck and tried to think back. The entire episode, the fight outside the shuttle, her awakening in the med lab, all seemed to have happened in another life with her watching from a distance.

She looked out the window. It always struck Jack as odd how the med bay had a view of the crew's mess. She watched a handful of the crew eat their meals, their heads bobbing in time to each others' conversation, punctuated occasionally with a smile or laugh at some unheard joke. She wondered if they could see her as well? If so, they paid her no attention. It was just as well. They never had anything to say to her, nor she to them so what did it matter?

Grunt's huge frame lumbered into view. He ambled across the galley, favoring one leg slightly. The other had been neatly cleaned and dressed with bright white bandages over medigel. He looked over each of the _Normandy's_ crew as he limped by their tables. The humans in the room all studiously avoided eye contact until he passed, then gave each other silent looks of varying levels of disapproval and disgust. A pair of them got up and quickly left the room.

_Something else we have in common_ , Jack thought.  _They don't even pretend to see us._ The difference was that Grunt didn't bring it on himself like she did. Watching the others react the way they did behind his back should have made her angry, but instead now it made her feel sorry for the krogan who seemed oblivious to their scorn.

She continued to watch as the Grunt approached the kitchen. Surprisingly, the mess hall guy, Gardner or whatever his name was, didn't shy away from the big lizard. Instead, he nodded as Grunt motioned towards the counter and grinned as Grunt picked up an entire serving pan of food and carried it back to an empty table away from the others. Gardner followed with another tray of food and set it down in front of the krogan, who proceeded to wolf down what appeared to be some kind of brisket by the kilo. Gardner and Grunt exchanged a few words and the human laughed and gave Grunt pat on the shoulder before returning to the galley. The remaining crew all watched from the corners of their eyes and continued their whispered conversations.

At that point, all the pity Jack felt towards Grunt landed squarely on herself. The entire crew thought he was dangerous and unstable, but in spite of that he had made a friend. Grunt had been telling the truth when they had talked before their fight. He was more than just a weapon, even if only one person recognized it.

_Two people,_ Jack thought. There was always one other who gave them both the chance to prove they were more than dangerous savages.

She took a deep breath, pulled herself upright, and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. The medical monitor beeped in protest. Undoubtedly, the ship's computer would rat her out and the doctor would come back with that hypo spray or worse, so she had to act quickly. Using all of her strength, she slid from the bed and staggered toward the door.

* * *

Grunt drained the last drop of gravy from the serving tray by upending it into his open maw. The human cook always seemed to have plenty of leftovers to fill even his massive appetite. How the rest of the crew subsisted on so little food was a mystery. Maybe Shepard had them all on some restrictive diet to keep them from getting fat and complacent? Whatever the reason, he found most of what Gardner offered delicious even if he didn't have the joy of killing it on his own. Such were the rigors of life aboard a human starship.

"Hey," said a voice he was not expecting to hear.

Grunt lowered the serving tray to see Jack before him, wrapped in a loose white gown, hunched over the table and breathing heavily. She was obviously using all of her strength just to stand. The look in her eye, though, showed she still had plenty of fight in her. Grunt set the serving tray down and placed his hands on the edge of the table with his legs curled beneath the bench. He could easily push himself to his feet or launch the table right into Jack from this position. He waited for her next move.

"I just wanted to say thanks for bringing me back," Jack said.

Grunt sniffed the air and looked her over from head to toe. He let go of the table and leaned back, slightly unsure. "You're welcome."

Jack had lied. She wanted to tell him so much more... that he had been right about how similar they were, about how she too had nowhere to focus her anger, and that she admired that somehow he managed to do so. But most of all that she was sorry for starting the fight. She was an expert in pushing people away, but didn't know how to handle it when someone pushed back.

But none of it came out. It was too much of a stretch. She gave Grunt a nod before turning to walk away. "See you around."

Grunt watched her go. There were no blue sparks this time, no sharp words and it surprised him. It surprised him even more that for once, he was happy not having to kill someone. He felt like he should say... something. Something strong, but wise. What would Shepard say? "Good fight, Jack," he called after her.

Jack stopped and looked over her shoulder, a tired, half smile on her face. "You too. Later." Amidst the frozen stares of the remaining crew in the mess, she staggered slowly out of the room.

Grunt went noisily back to work on the next pile of leftover brisket. He'd had a good fight, a good talk with his battlemaster, and a good meal all in one day. He could only wonder how how tomorrow could be better.

* * *

_The End_


End file.
